By Ian Neubauer
Diageo Australia has announced a number of new appointments to staff its new off-premise sales and customer marketing teams.
Jeff Williams has been appointed to lead the new customer marketing team, taking up the title of customer marketing director.
The new sales team will be broken down along geographical lines. Geoff Cockerill has been appointed field sales director – east, to lead the implementation of the sales strategy in Queensland and NSW; while Eddie Harris has been appointed field sales director – west, to do the same in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
Diageo Australia’s national sales team now consists of 202 sales representatives, a merchandising team of 40 and a new e-sales team created to extend the distributor’s customer contact points in the off-premise sector.
Diageo Australia national sales director, Dennis Brown, said the new sales strategy reflects the changing landscape of retail alcohol sales in Australia — the runaway growth of RTD sales in particular.
“The RTD category is almost as big as wine and the retail environment should reflect this change for the benefit of the retailer,” he said. “Currently RTD does not receive the right amount of space relative to its profit contribution [so] Diageo has created a structure than can support growth in the RTD category and make the most of a big opportunity.”